Barbara Michaels: The Dark on the Other Side

Another shot and another…or was it the blood pounding in his ears? The room had gone dark-or was it because his eyes were closed? There was only one sense left to him, but it was enough-the feel of the warm, living body in his arms, and its response.

Galen had to shake him, hard, before he opened his eyes. The older man’s pallor was so pronounced that he looked bleached-hair, face, eyes.

“It’s all right,” Galen said. He laughed, shortly and humorlessly. “What a description…”

“You got it?” Michael asked.

“Got it? What?”

“The dog…Don’t, I don’t want her to see.” He stiffened, trying to shield Linda as Galen’s impersonal hand caught her chin and forced her face up.

“She’s all right, too,” Galen said. “I’m sorry, Linda; you’re entitled to a nice long bout of hysterics, but not just yet and certainly not here. The servants must have been wakened by that cannonade. We must leave before someone comes.”

“I don’t want her to see…” Michael repeated, with idiot persistence.

“She had better see it.” Galen turned them both, and Michael saw the sprawled body of Gordon Randolph. The white shirt was no longer white. The face was as blank as a wax dummy’s.

“Dead,” Galen said. “Like any other mortal creature.”

Michael felt Linda shiver, and lifted her into his arms as he heard the first tentative rap on the door.

“It’s locked,” Galen said softly. “But we’d better get going. Down the outside staircase.”

When they got to the car, Michael was somehow not surprised to see a familiar shape sitting on the roof. Galen grabbed Napoleon, who came without protest. They were back on the main highway before anyone spoke.

“Put about ten miles behind us and then find a place to stop,” Galen ordered. “I’m going to put Linda to sleep. And you aren’t fit to drive far.”

Michael nodded. He knew, better than Galen possibly could, how unfit he was. When Galen told him to pull over, he was glad to change places with the other man. Linda was already half asleep. She looked so fragile that Michael was almost afraid to touch her. She opened her eyes and gave him a wavering smile.

“…Love you…” she whispered, and drifted off.

“I wonder,” Galen said, after a time.

“Wonder what? Whether she loves me?”

“Oh, that. No, I think you’ll make out all right there. You’re her hero, aren’t you? Fighting the powers of darkness for her soul…What are lions compared to that?”

The familiar sardonic tones woke Michael completely. He leaned forward, arms folded on the back of the seat.

“What did you see, Galen?”

“At the end?” Galen slowed for a blinking stop light, and then picked up speed. “The original delusion of lycanthropy was Randolph’s, as I suspected. He reverted completely.”

“I saw him change,” Michael said quietly. “I saw the dog. How do you define a hallucination, Galen? If three people out of four see one thing, and the fourth sees something else-which of them is hallucinating?”

Galen’s silence was eloquent-of what, Michael wasn’t sure.

“How do you know Briggs saw a dog?” he asked finally.

“What was he shooting at, his beloved employer?”

“He flipped,” Galen said shortly.

“I admire your technical vocabulary. Where did he go, by the way?”

“Out and down. I didn’t think the little swine could move that fast… It’s possible that he was aiming at you. When the gun was empty, he made a dash for it, and I can tell you I didn’t try to stop him.”

“And then you walked out on a murder. In view of your haste to leave, I gather you don’t intend to inform the police that we were there.”

“No.”

“Why not, Galen?”

“There is no purpose to be served by such an act. Briggs killed his employer during one of their insane rites. If the police wish to question Mrs. Randolph, she has been with me. No problems.”

“What a nice bloody liar you are,” Michael said admiringly. “It all spells Merry Christmas, doesn’t it? Satisfies you completely?”

“I’ve explained everything.”

“Yes, you have. Galen-what did you see? Honestly?”

There was a pause. Finally Galen said,

“Drop it, Michael.”

“But if you-”

“Drop it, I said.” Eyes steady on the road, Galen drove on. “I saw what I wanted to see. Collective hallucination is a catchword, but it satisfies me. I don’t want any glimpses of the dark on the other side.”

“Only one problem,” Michael said.

“What’s that?”

“They’ll do an autopsy, of course. On Randolph’s body.”

“Naturally.”

“Which gun fired the shot that killed him, Galen?”

Galen didn’t answer immediately. When he did, it was not in words. Michael took the object that was passed to him. To his overheated imagination, the barrel still felt warm.

“Are you sure?”

“Not of which shot killed him, no. I fired at Briggs. He was spraying bullets around like a machine gun, and I thought he was aiming at you. But people were moving pretty fast.”

“They’ll be able to tell, if it was a bullet from this gun.”

“They won’t find either gun. Briggs took his with him, and if he has a grain of sense he’ll destroy it.”

“And this one?”

“I’ve got to go back to Europe next week.”

“Some convenient lake in France, or a ditch in Holland…Nice.”

“What do you suggest I do, hand it over to the police?”

“Don’t lose your temper. I’ll never be able to thank you for what you’ve done tonight… Maybe I shouldn’t tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“It was a bullet from this gun that killed Randolph.”

“That wouldn’t keep me awake nights,” Galen said icily. “But how do you know?”

“There was only one bullet in it.”

“So?”

Michael put his head down on his arms. His bad arm ached and he was sick with exhaustion. But tonight he would sleep without fear, or remorse.

“It was a silver bullet.”

ELIZABETH PETERS (writing as BARBARA MICHAELS) was born and brought up in Illinois and earned her Ph.D. in Egyptology from the University of Chicago ’s famed Oriental Institute. Peters was named Grandmaster at the inaugural Anthony Awards in 1986, Grandmaster by the Mystery Writers of America at the EdgarÆ Awards in 1998, and given The Lifetime Achievement Award at Malice Domestic in 2003. She lives in an historic farmhouse in western Maryland.